Elise Hennigan took a huge risk and left her high up position in a startup to pursue her own idea. She found inspiration in her dog, Emmet, because of how kind and loving he is. “Dogs light people up. They bring out this love and passion in people, and they connect us to each other. I started Should We Go? to honor this idea,” Hennigan says. Rather than jumping into the market with her own assumption of what would sell, she instead conducted research on Amazon. Figuring out which products were well liked and which ones were not, Elise constructed her idea: a hands-free dog leash. While she knew this was a great niche market idea, she also knew that these products already existed, so she did more research. After looking through the reviews of the existing product, she decided to switch up her design to solve these problems.
Elise says,“Everyone else is using the same criteria for product launches, so you really, truly need to think outside of the box. Like so many things in life, you should be aware of the rules so you can break them thoughtfully and with intention.” This type of innovative thinking perfectly exhibits a great entrepreneur: figuring out what everyone else is doing wrong and counteract it. With this incredible entrepreneurial mindset, Hennigan was able to branch out her brand by creating unique, handmade dog bowls on Etsy. With a company like Should We Go? there is now way to go except up.
By analyzing the market rather than assuming what people want, Elise Hennigan shows her brilliance in understanding that marketing (and selling) is “Finding out what people want and giving it to them” (as Dr. Powell wisely says). I look forward to seeing more products flow from this lucrative company. Good luck Elise!
